Science is closer to creating genetically engineered human beings, and the advances in technology are sparking ethical arguments over making “a new kind of person.”
The National Institutes of Health said Wednesday it would not fund any research into the gene editing of human embryos. The decision comes after Chinese researchers announced last week results from the first study to edit human embryo genes.
Gene editing, as the term implies, enables a scientist to cut DNA from a genome and insert it into another genome.
Theoretically an edited human embryo could then be implanted in a woman’s uterus.
The goal is to edit the group of cells called the germline that could hand down diseases from one generation to the next. Researchers hope to prevent inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia from being passed on from a parent to a child.
The Chinese study was not successful. Scientists missed targets to place the DNA and discovered unknown mutations to cells.
However, the experiment has renewed talk in the scientific community of whether such research should be performed in the first place.
One expert told the Washington Examiner that gene editing can be useful to help treat sick people, but it is a different thing altogether to alter embryos.
“What you are doing there is creating a new kind of person,” said Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, an advocacy group that has called for a halt to such experiments.
If you start to modify embryos for health reasons, then it could start humanity down a path towards non-therapeutic enhancements, according to a recent article in the journal Nature.
Darnovsky also argued that genetically engineering humans could lead to a new kind of inequality. In comments to the Washington Examiner, other opponents echoed that concern.
“People who fall short of some technically achievable ideal would be seen as ‘damaged goods,’ while the standards for what is genetically desirable will be those of the society’s economically and politically dominant groups,” according to a statement from the Council for Responsible Genetics.
In addition, concerns about embryo modifications could derail “a promising area of therapeutic development, namely making genetic changes that cannot be inherited,” wrote Edward Lanphier, chairman of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, in the article.
The article noted research into editing non-reproductive cells such as white blood cells that help the body fight disease.
Darnovsky and other scientists cautioned that a ban on research is more complicated.
Modifying the germline could be acceptable if it is only for research and won’t be used in humans, according to Harvard Medical School biologist George Daley, who was quoted in an article in Nature.
The journal Protein & Cell defended its decision to publish the Chinese study, saying in an editorial that it was “sounding an alarm to draw immediate attention to the urgent need to rein in applications of gene-editing technologies.”
The debate surrounding genetically engineered humans isn’t new. It has long been a staple of literary science fiction, including Aldous Huxley’s 1931 novel “Brave New World,” and it has been treated — usually in negative, dystopian terms — in movies like “Gattaca.”
Countries have also debated this topic for many years. More than 40 countries have laws that either discourage or ban modifications to the germline.
The United States is not one of them.
NIH advisors have traditionally not approved funding proposals for germline modifications, and now the NIH has made it official policy.
The Food and Drug Administration could technically approve a clinical trial studying embryo modification.
While the agency doesn’t have any specific prohibitions against such research, “the agency is aware of the ethical concerns,” spokeswoman Tara Goodin told the Examiner.
